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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25741117">bloody knuckles, just for you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardcookie/pseuds/lizardcookie'>lizardcookie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), canon-verse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:35:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,903</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25741117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardcookie/pseuds/lizardcookie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Evans,” his voice comes out pained, raw, right there between them. He doesn’t want to lose this. “Evans. Please. I’m trying really hard here.”</p>
<p>“Trying?” Lily repeats, swallowing. Fingers still curled around her, warm. Her own fingers are still curled around the wire rim of his glasses. He can feel them graze his skin, maddening, a false offering at the altar of the temple of his skull. “Trying to do what?”</p>
<p>“Figure this out.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Potter &amp; Lily Evans Potter, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>194</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>bloody knuckles, just for you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Fingertips covered in red juices turned purple, would have stained her robes if they weren’t black. Would have pricked her finger tips if he didn’t roll his eyes at her, cast the most minor of shield charms right there on her skin so she could rummage for wild berries that should be examined for magical properties before being eaten. She doesn’t examine them; she pops them in her mouth, throws them at him, laughing, good and free and here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Those being poisonous is the least of your concerns,” he tells her, mock-serious, when she throws another square berry at his head that he pretends to ignore. His fingers, clean, not stained from illicit berry picking, count of her possible indiscretions. “Wand-wood fairy food, snakes bane, doxy repellent, kneazle knip…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you think?” She asks, pinning him with a look. “You’re in the Forest all the time, running around like the riff raff you are. Will either of us die from this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Never, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he wants to answer. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Could never let you die, not like that, not with me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hard to tell,” he shrugs instead, smirk pulling up at his lips. His fingers dip down into the earth now, surrendering to her, pulling up a handful of berries like her. Plops one in his mouth and wonders what it’d be like to kiss her like this, sticky sweet and hidden in the dark. “Guess we’ll go down together.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good,” she responds, eyes lingering on the spot where the berry went into his mouth. At least, that’s what he thinks, what he wants to believe, what he cannot believe. Lily bends down, plucks another few berries, and instead of throwing them at his head, his chest, like she had before, she holds them out in her hand, reaching out to him. Obviously he responds, opens his palm, ready, willing, waiting beneath her bloodied fingertips carrying more pain than they should. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If they were poisonous, they’d have white ooze in the leaves,” she explains, stepping closer to him, not caring that her robes snag on thorns. “If they were fairy food, I’d already be fighting off their hoard and if it were doxy repellent or snakes bane it wouldn’t matter.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily’s rattling off details from a lecture Sprout gave them four years ago when the class ventured into the Forest for sample collection. She’s rattling off details like everyone knows these obscure facts, like everyone can absorb knowledge like her, wisdom like her. Her fingers are still ghosting above his palm, feather-light touch floating above him. James finds it harder to breathe. The berries might not be lethal, but she is. Poison versus venom. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If these were poisonous,” she says, looking steadily up at him, like they do this all time time, go strolling in the Forest before midnight all the time, stand close like this all the time, “You wouldn’t have let me pick them. You wouldn’t have let me near them in the first place.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re right,” he says back, steadily, like she said so. What else is he supposed to say? He can’t joke that he wouldn’t, lie that he’d let her get in harm's way for no reason when she’s standing in the middle of a war anyway. Maybe berries would be a merciful way to go for her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t,” he adds pointlessly when she doesn’t respond, when her hand is brushing his for too many moments too long, beyond the point where things feel good and light and friendly between them. James takes a step forward, feels his robes tug on thorns, at the same time that Lily pulls her hand away and takes a step back. The same as always. One step forward, one step back, progress unmarked and unknown. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s the inaction that drives him mad. It’s the way the pendulum swings between them that he cannot comprehend. It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>her </span>
  </em>
  <span>he cannot comprehend, an enigma he revisits time and time again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows how he feels. He’d tell her if it didn’t feel so wrong. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’re walking again, like that moment didn’t happen. He’d swallowed it up, felt it fill the pit in his stomach where the rest of those moments go, uncategorized, undecipherable, untenable. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily leads him deeper into the woods. He’d follow her anywhere, he thinks. Even like this, confused, flotsam and jetsam, he’d follow her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Most anywhere, that is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re headed towards a centaurs’ grove,” James tells her, once he thought they couldn’t go too much further without purposefully inviting ire upon them. “In case you want to change directions.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily stops walking, just slightly ahead of him, turns to face him. The trees are dense here, but the moonlight streams through, shines through her hair. Her skin basically glows blue. It’s enchanting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How do you know so much?” She asks, taking a step closer to him, hands behind her back, curious. Her eyes are narrowed suspiciously at him. “This isn’t where we studied tracks for OWLs.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He takes a step towards her, repeating the cycle. “Grubbly-Plank is bigoted fool who is afraid of centaurs and thinks intelligent creatures can’t be trusted. Of course she only showed us tracks.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She takes a step towards him, hands still clasped behind her back like she’s studying him. “You didn’t answer my question. Hagrid can’t possibly be taking you this deep into the Forest for detention, can he?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come on, Evans,” he smiles playfully at her, mirroring her body, hands clasped behind his back and bending down towards her like he’s studying her back (he is). “You think I spend all my time in class or detention?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mostly,” she says, upward tilt to her lips, a movement he watches every microsecond of. “How else?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know. Quidditch, class, Sirius,” he lists, then pauses. “You,” James says, which is the truth. If he isn’t with her in person, he’s still thinking of her. Between rounds and class and homework, there’s her. A better categorical description would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>Lily </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Other. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm,” she mulls over. He’s right and she can’t argue with him, or else she would, just for the fun of it. That much he knows. “So where are you fitting in escapading with centaurs?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think I’m allowed a few secrets.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If I ask nicely?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll be denied them just as kindly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her bottom lip juts out in a pout and it’s these moments that make him think there has to be something there. It’s these moments that keep him floating. So he takes another step closer, where they’re toe to toe. Narrows his eyes at her slightly, tilting his head. Studying her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why’re we here, Lily?” They ended rounds at the Entrance Hall and she grabbed his hand and pulled, pulled, pulled, til they were past Hagrid’s hut, past the trees that turn to shrubs compared to the ones that stand tall and proud in the deeper Forest. “A real answer, please. It’s past midnight and we’ve got double Transfiguration in the morning.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>And a morning practice, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’d add, but that’s a minor detail. Whatever lack of sleep he’s getting tonight will be worth it regardless of her answer. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her hands fall from behind her back, slack. She’s looking at him, close, before she turns her head to the side, biting her lip. He doesn’t move. She’ll answer when she can. That much he knows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know where centaurs live. You know which plants want to strangle anyone who walks by. I’ve been walking ahead of you but you’re the one with a whole map of the school, including here, in your head.” She looks up at him now, still chewing on her lip. “I know the year basically just started. But I can’t help but wake up and think, everyday, about how this is it. This is the last of the days we get. Maybe I want to see more. Maybe I want to see some of it through your eyes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s moments like these that are the most maddening, the hardest to withstand. Moments like these that he can’t comprehend without more from her. His eyes jump between hers, moonlight and starlight gathered there, jewels. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your glasses,” Lily interrupts, blinking, before making a brave swipe up at them. “They’re different.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He bats her hand away, almost annoyed, but not. Should have expected her changing the subject. He doesn’t know who they are at this point without the ritualistic dancing around the subject they’re trapped in. “Are not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are too,” she says stubbornly, this time on the tips of her toes, this time successful in latching onto her prey. Her fingers curl around the wireframes, one, two, three. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His hand meets her there, wrapping his fingers over hers, one, two, three, four. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright, maybe they’re different,” he concedes. Maybe he got bested by a group of Slytherins after dinner who Vanished his good pair of glasses for the hell of it. Who is to say. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She doesn’t pull her hand down. He doesn’t remove his hand from guarding hers. These are the moments he cannot let pass by, when she doesn’t avert her gaze from his, when she doesn’t step away. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Evans,” his voice comes out pained, raw, right there between them. He doesn’t want to lose this. “Evans. Please. I’m trying really hard here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Trying?” Lily repeats, swallowing. Fingers still curled around her, warm. Her own fingers are still curled around the wire rim of his glasses. He can feel them graze his skin, maddening, a false offering at the altar of the temple of his skull. “Trying to do what?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Figure this out.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has to focus on his breathing or else he’ll stop, has to focus on his heart beating or it might leap out his chest. Not that it would matter too much— it isn’t his heart, he doesn’t own it, he isn’t the one controlling it or else he could have been well shaken of her when he tried to shed her from his skin years ago.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes dart between his. Her chest is also moving up and down. He knows this, because his is nearly pressed against it. She must feel that treacherous beating ringing out like a chorus for her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh?” She asks, practically wincing, obviously stalling. “What’s this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lily,” he says this time, even more pained. He pulls her fingers from his glasses, intertwines his fingers with her, dropping their hands down at their sides. Offering accepted. “Merlin. Merlin and Morgana, help me out here.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you want me to say, James?” She asks, quiet. But she doesn’t pull away. Actually, she squeezes his hand in hers. That has to be a good sign.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Anything,” he whispers back, faces very close. “As long as it’s the truth.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The berries have colored her lips ruby red, more gems to add to the collection of memories which define the image of her in his head. She bites her bottom lip, careless to its status as a precious artifact, thinking. “That can be dangerous.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s the only thing that matters.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“All the more reason to be careful with it, then.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lily,” he whispers again, as grounding as it is not, the pendulum’s swing catching him in its sway, “What have you got to lose?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A lot,” she answers, still squeezing his hand. “What have </span>
  <em>
    <span>you?” </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A lot,” he says, mostly honest. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Everything </span>
  </em>
  <span>would be more accurate. Same for her. They both know it. “That’s why I’m asking.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can afford to lose.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wants to grip her tighter, squeeze her fingers as much as she’s holding his to prove she’s wrong. He resists the urge. Instead he finds her other hand at her side in his free hand, not looking away from her, rubs his thumb on the back of her hand back and forth, greedy and gentle in one. “I’m not so sure.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am,” Lily holds, pitting him with a look. “Everything I do feels more important than ever right now. Especially the people I trust.”</span>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can trust me,” he says, pointless words. Trust isn’t promised but earned, time and time and time again. He’s afraid he’ll never have enough time to make up for the amount he’s lost, fears he’ll never scrape the sands of the hourglass back up to the top to reset the moments they have together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know. And I do,” she tells him, a smile that feels sad to him when on her face, head tilted to the side. “Trust you, that is. Which is the problem.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Problem?” He swallows, holds himself back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily just nods. But she doesn’t step back, doesn’t pull back, doesn’t back away from her words. “You haven’t always been this way.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>James nods as well. He can see what she means, even though she’s wrong. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is me,” he says, gently again. “Besides,” he adds pointedly, “You haven’t always been this way.” Maybe she’s right; maybe he hasn’t been who he is, but she hasn’t always been this either. They’re both a bit softer. Both a bit more clear on what each other needs, what the world needs, what the world will take in order to get it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s always been infatuated with whoever she is. That her form changes is no matter, not to him, when the one thing about her that hasn’t changed is that she’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “Are we allowed to change, Evans?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We are.” She nods again, more serious than he’s seen her. “And isn’t that terrifying?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>James just shrugs. “I think to stay the same is a worse fate.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lily doesn’t answer him. Red-stained bloodied hands holding bloodied hands, he waits for her. These are the moments he cannot pass up, she and him, him and her, waiting, testing, trusting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She lifts her eyes from the ground, moonlight catastrophic in them like a galaxy bursting. “What do you want me to say, James?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another hand squeeze. “The truth.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That powerful thing. Lily just sighs, taking it all on, risking it all. She has more to lose; he has more to give. Together that can’t be all that bad.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not sure what the truth is,” she confesses, leans closer into him, still chest to chest and heart and heart. “The truth is that I really, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>fancy you a stupid amount. The truth is that I’m afraid that this could all be a big, horrible joke you’re pulling over me—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then it’s worse,” Lily says, not losing her stride. “Because if this isn’t a joke, then it isn’t some game I can keep playing with you. And if it isn’t a joke, then it’s real.” She pulls free her hands, lifts them to his waist, wraps them around his hips like this is an easy and familiar and casual thing for her to do, even though what she’s doing is new, unfamiliar, completely numbing, and what she’s saying isn’t giving him much clarity right now. “If this isn’t a joke, then I have to start giving it a name, James. You know what that means.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s the difference of a name?” The back of his knuckle now grazes down her soft, moonstone cheek. She leans into it. He doesn’t know if that’s intentional or not, but she leans in anyway, and he feels that must mean something, another something that she won’t explain for him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Power. Both of creation and destruction.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Old magic,” James whispers back, dismissing her concern with the slightest shake of his head. She’s right in some ways and wrong in others. “Irrelevant magic. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You </span>
  </em>
  <span>know that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She must; she does. Lily Evans has never been afraid of a name before, not her own Muggle surname or the name Voldemort. She’d call him by his birth name if she could ever track it down, eradicating any remaining power it might have over her. That much he knows about her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her purple hands are around his waist. His are still at her face, fingertips smudged like they aren’t his anymore. Maybe this doesn’t have a name. Maybe this doesn’t need a name. He certainly can’t think of any besides her’s, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Lily Lily Lily</span>
  </em>
  <span> beating in rhythm, chest and head together, together, together. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If I give this power,” she whispers, fingers playing at the back of his shirt, casual and familiar and easy like it shouldn’t be, “How will you destroy me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I won’t,” he says, brow furrowed just a little bit. James isn’t familiar with a destructive sort of love. The two seem incongruous rather than synonymous like she thinks they are. James doesn’t know about Petunia and doesn’t really know that much about Severus. James knows about secret Animagi and Sirius living in his home long before he truly had none. James wants to ask her question after question about what sorts of lies about love and loyalty she’d been sold, but doesn’t. All he does is look her in the eye again, honest as he’s ever been. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I won’t, Lily.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her eyes don’t leave his. “Promise?” She asks, voice small, fingers stilled in their plucking at his back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Promise.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright,” Lily says, bringing her hand to meet his at her cheek, turns her cheek, presses a kiss right there at the sweet berry palm of his hand. “Alright,” she repeats, a soft smile spread on her face, like the one on his. She grips his hand, interlocks their fingers, a sticky mess, and tugs at his arm. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lead us home, then. I trust you.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i hope you guys like links for education and support because all my fics will have them. this website is a work of art and if you cant find a place to support here, research your hometown's nonprofit/radical orgs: http://www.pb-resources.com/</p>
<p>i missed canon-jily. the canon where james and lily are radicals and snape isnt considered the bravest person harry knew. the canon that doesnt exist because jkr cared more about snape than about harry's radical parents and then above that cared more about the men in her narrative than she ever cared for the women. anyway.</p>
<p>title SLIGHTLY inspired by folklore. i refuse to exist in an "exile" jily world but "i can see you staring honey / like he's just your understudy / like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me" is a GOOD line.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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